Cartons for encasing and dispensing multiple articles such as soft drink cans or bottles are useful for enabling users to transport, store, and access the articles for consumption. The user typically prefers the ability to easily retrieve one article from the carton at a time. To that end, it is desirable to have cartons with dispensers which allow one article to be removed, while continuing to encase the remaining articles. The user tears out a portion of the carton to form an access opening from which articles may be dispensed.
When the articles contained in the carton are cylindrical, and are disposed in the carton upon their sides, it is important that the articles be constrained such that the remaining articles do not unexpectedly and undesirably roll out of the dispenser when one is removed. It is also important to restrain all of the articles such that when the carton is first opened, the first article does not fall out of the carton. Thus, it can be appreciated that it would be desirable to have a carton with a dispenser that constrains articles to prevent the articles from undesirably rolling from or otherwise exiting the carton when one article is removed, or when the carton is first opened.
As a carton may be stored in a restrictive space such as on a refrigerator shelf, it is advisable to provide an access opening that enables a user to access an end of an article to pull the article out of the carton end rather than having to lift the article out of the top of the carton. End removal of articles is especially advantageous where the carton is to be stored on an adjustable refrigerator shelf, because the user is able to optimize storage space by conforming the height of the shelf to the height of the carton, without obscuring the access opening.
It is known to provide a carton having a side accessible dispenser for articles, such as those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,368,194 and 6,478,219. Advantageously, these cartons enable the user to access the end of an article through a side wall portion of an access opening, and to “hook” the end of the article with one or more fingers to pivot the end of the article toward and through the end wall portion of the access opening, such that the article can then be removed from the carton through the end wall. However, the access opening created by removal of a tear panel of each of these inventions is situated near the bottom wall of the respective cartons, and thus, the dispenser of each of the cartons of these inventions must have a relatively small opening to prevent the lowermost article from falling out of or being ejected from the carton. The small opening dictates that the user must manipulate the endmost article into the correct position for removal from the carton, thereby potentially tearing the access opening. Furthermore, the lowermost article within each carton may tend to be forced toward the opening due to gravity and pressure from other articles in the carton such that the lowermost article undesirably at least partially protrudes through the opening before the user actually attempts to remove the article. When the lowermost article is removed, the same forces may cause another article to rapidly and somewhat forcefully shift toward the opening, which may tear the access opening and compromise the integrity of the carton and of the opening, which tends to further degrade the ability of the opening to restrain the articles remaining in the carton.
It can be appreciated, therefore, that it also is desirable to provide a carton having an improved article dispenser that is convenient to use and facilitates access to and removal of articles.